Socioeconomic inequalities in smoking-attributable mortality in Europe; understanding trends 2000-2020 25 2 Life expectancy Between 2000 and 2020, life expectancy between age 50 and 80 ranged between 17 years (Lithuania, 2007, Lower educated men) and 24.8 years (Switzerland, 2020, Higher educated women). Figure 2 shows the difference in observed life expectancy and a hypothetical scenario in which no individuals had ever smoked. In this hypothetical scenario up to 1.2 years could have been gained is gained in life expectancy for women (Denmark, Lower educated, appendix II), and up to 2.4 years for men (Lithuania, Lower educated men, Appendix III). Lower educated men could have gained more years than higher educated men, while among women differences between educational groups were smaller. Figure 2 also shows changes in hypothetical gained life expectancy if smoking had not occurred; among men the hypothetical gain from never having smoked decreased, while for women it was stable or increasing with Denmark as the exception. Figure 2: Hypothetical gain in partial life expectancy between age 50 and 80 in the absence of smoking histories, from a cause deleted life-table Decomposition analysis Life expectancy increased between 2000 and 2020 among those with middle and higher educational attainment for both men and women. Among the lower educated, large differences were observed. In some cases, e.g. Austrian, Estonian and Swiss men, life expectancy increased more among lower educated than higher educated, while for Lithuanian and Finnish women, life expectancy decreased among the lower educated, by 0.6 and 0.2 years respectively (Appendix III). Life expectancy can change due to changes in smoking-attributable mortality and changes in mortality due to other causes. The contribution of both groups
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